To Change Fate
by Helltanz98
Summary: The future is grim and terrible, such that after the end there are those who would change it if they could
1. Chapter 1 Prologue A dark Future

To Challenge Fate

Disclaimer: I do not lay claim to Danny Phantom, or any other intellectual property that inspired this work of fanfiction. This fic is entirely done as a non profit fun writing project.

Helltanz's notes: this is a rewrite of the first story I posted to FFN, it goes into much higher detail, and actually shows the plot and some of the details that I never got around to making clear, and or posting in all the time its been laying here... So if you're reading this:

Well this got posted back in 2005, this rewrite was started on September 30th 2012, so eventually it might get a third chapter, we'll see.

Now I've been trying to avoid large author notes but this one kind of needs it. This chapter takes place in an alternate timeline (the Future) and to add to the disclaimer above Rifts has contributed greatly to the setting itself. Also slight alterations to the timeline (spacing of events has been made, and I hope I've made that apparent enough.)

-chapter begin-

Ten years was a long time, even if he was functionally immortal. The fact of the matter was being a half ghost had its perks, and its drawbacks. It was rapidly approaching yet another anniversary, he did not celebrate. Well more than one actually this time of year had many. It would yet another anniversary of getting his powers in that miserable portal mishap in his parent's basement.

The Phantom stroked his jaw. So much had happened in ten years. The ten years since his parents had died in that explosion, along with his friends. In that intervening space of time though other friends had died, and others had become his worst enemies. That was just the reality of how grim and terrible the future had become. The explosion had just been the catalyst for his own descent, it had taken time for the rest of the world to follow.

Ten years ago after the explosion he'd gone to live with Vlad leaving Valerie to deal with the ghosts who could now run rampant in Amity Park. In hindsight that was one of the few things he'd come to regret though not entirely for sentimental reason. Valerie's abilities back then had not quite been what they were today, and those fools from the government bungled things rather severely. Serverly enough that it'd set the ground work for another problem. The bungling had lead to the Manson's funding spree.

Back then Danny hadn't cared that Sam's parents had poured the family fortune into science and supernatural research. For a time Valerie, and the Mansons had even worked together. Eventually that had fallen through, turning both of them into enemies, but not before all kinds of new problems had been spawned by that joining of forces.

He'd been too busy back then to notice. Vlad's 'purification process' was flawed, and the consequences of it were still evident. He'd been too busy trying to cope with being an entity that amounted to a pure ghost... without actually being one.

Doctor Daniel Fenton had allegedly died in the attack on Los Angeles several years back. The doctor was a part of Vlad's attempt to get him to cope with his parents and friends' deaths. He'd hired the best experts and tutors to hone his education pushing him into a frenzy of studying and learning to try and get him over the grief. It had failed. Vlad's purification process had blown the cracks in his psyche wider, he'd snapped, and raged and destroyed things. Then he'd settled down and floated back.

After the purification he'd tried to get back into normal life, studying science. It was three years after the 'process' he'd found out about Valerie, and the Mansons teaming up. The Manson fortune had been used to gather all of Fenton Work's up all they needed was Danny's signature on the paperwork to take control. Had he known what a pain it would cause him he'd have never signed it even if he had wanted the money. At the time both sides got what they wanted, he'd gotten the money, and they'd gotten his parent's tech.

The Mansons had turned the anti ghost weapons over to Valerie and her Father, and that should have been that. All things being what they were it wasn't. So while Daniel Fenton had been off on the west coast at college the whole world started going to hell. Manson Industries became the bleeding edge of technology research, and paranormal weaponry. The whole world looked like it was going to be bright and fucking cheery.

Then Valerie had found out what Sam's parents were doing, but by that point it'd been too late to stop the megacorporation except by blowing them up Valerie had blown the lab to hell, and covered it up by using a ghost fight. That should have been the end of it, and Valerie never should have told him about any of it, but she thought she needed to.

Daniel Fenton should have been 34 this year... but that person was supposed to be dead. Valerie was one of the few people alive who knew the truth. That the Phantom was the supposed to have been dead doctor Fenton. Daniel Fenton who was sitting in his 'war room' more occupied by reminscing than what was going on on the screens.

When Valerie had found out she'd come to tell him. It was the first blatant public usage of the genetically engineered weapons the Manson's had developed obstensibly for the government. The monsters had forced his hand, and that was how Valeries knew. Then the Mansons' had tried to bring the building down. Valerie had known he'd survived, but she played a long with the story he'd been killed in the 'gas explosion'. That had been years ago, but like Vlad his aging had slowed considerably even in human... in fact it had seemed to have ground to a halt.

After that, the explosion that was supposed to have succeeded where the nasty burger explosion had failed, he'd started to pull a Vlad, as he had called it back then. He'd taken to using his powers to build an empire, it hadn't been easy especially with the increasing supernatural danger. Back when he'd been a teenager ghosts had been problematic enough other supernatural, and science borne monstrosities had forced him to focus on the supernatural.

That had been how it had started, Wulf... who was dead now, had joined him first. Wulf who'd been his most loyal ally, and had saved him countless times in those early years, who'd finally gotten killed in the line of duty.

It hadn't been long after Wulf had joined him that the Fright Knight had come and 'bent the knee' pledgling himself to the Phantom's service. The two powerful sapient ghosts had added greatly to his ability to gather resources in those early years. While he'd been doing that Valerie, and the Mansons had been busy having their falling out with each other.

The Mansons kept leading the way into the technological revolution, but the fallout gave others time to catch up. It also gave other people, less scrupulous people, time to benefit as well. He wasn't the only apart of that latter group of course.

It was ironic that it had only been after his parents had died he'd started taking school seriously, and then after he 'died' someone had gone and picked up his research. In 2013 while he'd been busy with the Ghost Zone fighting some doctorate student at MIT had gotten an invite from the Mansons after she'd made the break through of the century.

Everyone had different terms for the next big event Daniel called it the welcome to Planet Hell moment whenever it wasn't being discussed in a scientific manner. Most lay people called it the apocalypse, because really that was what it was. In the span of a few short years humanity was knocked back. In a few short years humanity was reduced to a scrambling, barely hangining on to the edge with horrors and monsters all around.

After the End Amity Park had come off better than most. Not that that was saying much. It was certainly true that after the end Valerie, and her dad had managed to make sure the city had held it together, but it had also brought all kinds of other problems to Amity Park. People tried to get to wherever was safe, and well the chaos of the 'Fall' had been just what he, Phantom, had been looking for in life at the time. That brought him back to the present.

Now though? That was the question, it had only with great reluctance that he had allowed himself to be forced into this position. Of course it had taken time for him to adjust to get over that explosion that had ruined his life, and set him on the course. Then again it had taken years for Vlad to get over his own problems. He sighed.

Last reports indicated that Vlad Masters was living in some town on the frontier of civilization. A miserable hold out in the western reaches of what had been Texas... or rather still was he supposed for what little the government could claim to administer. A measley handful of city states.

Doctor van Karman's entry into the war room came without announcement, "The preparations continue apace," He announced, "We expect the device to be ready on schedule."

The device was the technological and arcane monstrosity currently forming the bulk of his efforts and focus to build. If it worked it would be worth it, and if it didn't well, then it didn't, but as a long as it didn't blow up catastrophically, which was always a risk it would be worth it just for parts. He would just have to wait and see.

He'd abandonned the experiments the Mansons had started. Of course they'd had to abandon such experiments as well which was entirely understandable given the lack of resources available to dedicate to such projects particularly at the time. It didn't mean that he didn't want to change things, but this idea that he'd gotten from Vlad's notes was as good as any for actually trying it.

Karman was still talking, but it was mainly about various scientific issues related to power regulation that he wasn't particularly concerned about, "in short," The man stated, "I estimate that we will have an optimum time frame of eight minutes, most likely less though. As it maintaining the portal will be incredibly difficult given the reality of what we are trying to accomplish.

To change fate, to alter the course of history. That was their goal. It was also incredibly risky after the End it'd become readily apparent that the Ghost Zone wasn't the only inhabitted alternate dimension that existed. That was the unfortunate truth that came from Nightingale's journal, that they weren't alone.

What was coming was not simply one force, but dozens with the way opened up in the aftermath of the destruction. In many respects his rampaging had further weakened humanity before they had fully understood just what was already on their doorstep.

Phantom glanced at the screen, production of vital technology was a problematic thing in this time especially since most cities had been laid to waste. This destruction had also meant that entire types of technology had vanished as well. Amity Park was only just now starting to grow again after his last attack, which had been years ago. That was another anniversary that was coming up that he wasn't looking forward to. No doubt Valerie would remember, but nowadays she had more pressing issues to deal with than risk endangering the delicate status quo. He didn't expect any kind words though either.

The past was just that, but it also wasn't forgotten. His rampaging had burned countless bridges, and resources that in this day he could have used, that mankind could have used. Doctor van Karman turned, "Ah there is other news as well,"

Eyes narrowed, even if they were his 'human eyes'. "What news?" In this day it was clear that no news was the best news, news meant that something had changed and it was rarely for the better and that there was problem some threat on the horizon.

"While obviously the situation at the world at large is ... as chaotic as usual there remains the local concerns," The world at large was as much a mess as what had been America was. It was true that it tended to vary, there were certainly places worse off, and then there were those who were doing very well all things considered.

Daniel nodded for the man to continue. He didn't have the energy or the willpower to concern himself with the world as a whole. From the last time he'd cared to check Europe, and Asia might have been a squabling mess between a dozen semi important factions, but they were certainly no worse off than the former United States. South America and Africa might have been worse off, but there were very few who could afford to give a shit. It was pretty much that kind of situation. The whole world was a mess, and anything that was a few hundred miles away started to seem like another world, and that was with access to reasonably modern vehicles.

Such a vehicle was on the screen. The Mansons had made some modifications, particularly the clean energy battery, but ultimately the flat bed hovering all terrain vehicle was based originally on a Fenton Works design. Manson Industries was good at refining technology like that. The heavy flat bed 'hovering trucks' were idea for moving supplies or manpower across the wastes.

Slowly the ectoplasm warped around him, his hair lightened to a pure snow white, and eyes turned bloody red. This was the Phantom the whole world knew, even the aliens, and the monsters. He had gone back to a variant of the Fenton originating jumpsuits, though the cape remained even if the emblazoned logo was gone from his chest.

Only the Fright Knight retained his archaic supernaturally empowered medieval armor amongst the people here. For everyone else it was a mishmash of technology, most people had some kind of vaugely uniform black and white jumpsuit. Plasma based weapons tended to be effective against everything. The energy revolution mass produced by MI, and their competitors had also introduced cheap EM based systems as another option for weaponry as well. This era was nothing if not dangerous so you wanted a weapon that would be effective against all or at least most threats if you could get it. So both weapon types beat out old conventional firearms, even if those were still in use far and wide.

Van Karman handed over a computer tablet presenting the latest bad news. By all rights there wasn't a point about reading about Europe, it was too far away, but places like the midwest, and the old North East Corridor those were much closer, and then there was always Amity Park in particular that was kept an eye on. He tried to keep his spies outside of Valerie's field of vision, but he knew better than to loose track of what was going on in that city.

Of course for all that people like Valerie, and the Mansons had become powerful there were others who he'd never known who had become just as powerful in the wastes of North America. Of course he tended to pay the closest attention on the Manson's corporate domain. That not so little fief of corporate domain was both a boon, and a constant thorn in his side. Then there was Vlad... well as long as he stayed down south he shouldn't become an issue.

Still there were other threats, even if there weren't any raiders stupid enough to attack this facility more organized groups might have the ego to think they could get away with it. He'd just have to make sure things were extra vigiliant. Van Karman estimated of course that totally preventing the apocalypse was unlikely but controlling the descent better... well a crash landing was better than just a crash wasn't it?

-scene break-

Jeremy Manson ran a hand through his thinning blonde hair. Things shouldn't have been like this but they couldn't have helped it, just like they couldn't have stopped Sam from getting killed in that explosion. It was ironic that was precisely how her friend Daniel Fenton had died a few years later, of course they'd had a hand in that. That Valerie girl had gone and messed everything up of course and by the time they'd started getting back on track well it'd been too late. The one twenty as some of the people had started calling was not a pleasant time to live even within the relative safety of the Exclusion Zone of the Megasprawl of the rebuilt city.

His assistant was escorted in by a pair of black clad corporate guards. The full body encompassing uniforms were obstensibly state of the art, for light armor anyway, even having plates on the armor itself, which was a distinct step up from what the rank and file corporate troops had. Of course realistically if something got passed the regular guards chances were they were already playing with extremely dangerous weapons to begin with, or were just that stealthy. Of course that latter was likely to be just that much harder given this place was laden with sensors. "Mister Manson you're reports on production, as well as the information on developing situations as you requested,"

He took the files and started picking through them. It was a routine part of his day to day existence now. Keeping things running meant keeping people under control. A key piece of this was keeping things running on time, keeping factories operating, and churning out supplies, while at the same time providing security. The megasprawl was a corporate kingdom all neatly packaged up. It was true that things had been heading that way even before the apocalypse the US government's empowered conservative, and business friendly administration at the time had been very quick to authorize any powers necessary to deal with hostile threats like ghosts. Then it had stopped being just ghosts, and other threats. It had spread to other supernatural threats, then to ecoterrorists and then to striking workers.

Then the end had come and suddenly there was a flood of chaos. Megastorms, that had probably been fueled by supernatural creatures or powers, had ravaged the closest cities to the coast had been only one problem. The age old fact about cities, and the coast though came to rear its ugly head so it'd been one really big problem.

The ghosts before the End had been bad, but after it'd gotten worse. The dozens of other disasters had gotten piled on. Then on top of the Ghost threat, everything, every other monster and baddie seemed to come crawling out of the woodwork. Nowadays the biggest probable supernatural threat was the Phantom, the latest report on was sitting on his desk. It was true that Phantom wasn't the only supernatural threat he got regular reports on, but he was certainly one of the most pressing ones to conisder.

Most of the information was generic. Strictly speaking there was no proof that Phantom was telepathic, telekinetic sure, but not telepathic. Of course on the other hand there wasn't any conclusive proof he wasn't, which made reports concerning. This had become especially true during his rampaging period. A rampaging supernatural was bad, and then it had potentially gotten worse when Phantom had apparently decided to settle down and form his own little enclave. Neofeudalism was the fancy name given to local areas being ruled by the strongest faction in the area, and in an ironic way the Fright Knight just made it oddly picturesque to imagine.

Of course nowadays Phantom was rarely seen, and in an era were there was limitted national communication, much less international, there were some who claimed he didn't exist at all. Jeremy Manson knew better, and there was a reason a not insignificant portion of available resources went to maintaining the powerful ectoplasmic shield around the city. It was true enough that shield did also protect against other threats as well, but the attack on Amity Park had proven what he and the Fright Knight could do alone... the CEO didn't want consider the outcome of a concerted effort by Phantom's forces.

Still the report in front of him had other repercussions. Even when he'd been a rampaging monster travelling the wasteland there had never been any indication that Phantom was stupid, vindictive and prone to anger, but not stupid. So naturally Jeremy Manson was rightly concerned about the report that there was some kind of device under construction.

"Go get doctor Overfull, and see about raising Amity Park on the line," He didn't particularly like the idea of calling Amity Park, or Valerie Gray particularly but, well he needed every expert he could get his hands on, or talk to.

Jeremy Manson turned his full attention back to the data. This could be the worst case scenario they'd first imagined when the Phantom had first settled down. That worst fear had been that Phantom had been massing for a war of conquest against the whole continent. For over a year they'd waited, and while there was clear activity and building no attack had ever came. Phantom's enclave sat there, growing yes, but no horde had come rampaging across the wasteland towards the last bastions of civilizations... well never in force. These kind of reports though, power transfer couplings, and various systems that were critical to large scale plasma manipulation well Phantom's troops never been lacking for armaments.

Still he was a businessman not an expert in high energy weapons, so he'd just have to ask the experts what this could be, but he already a good idea. If that meant asking all the experts just in case well talking to Amity Park's de facto ruler was acceptable. First thing was first the reality of the day meant they first needed to identify just what it was that Phantom was dedicating such resources to building.

-scene break-

Valerie didn't have the advantage of immortality as a result of supernatural powers, she was getting old just like every other normal person. Phantom's attack years ago had forced her father to rely on crude cybernetics, but it kept him around so the glaring bits of metal weren't so bad. All in all life wasn't good, but it certainly could have worse.

Having to deal Jeremy Manson though that definitely decreased the quality of her day. That corporate bastard didn't look much older than her to tell the truth, but then again there was no telling how much the fat cat had spent on advanced medical treatments. Phantom at least had the excuse of being a freak to explain his lack of aging over the years. Of course it was Phantom that was the reason the corp's king was talking to her in the first place.

Jeremy Manson had always made a show of seemingly not understanding why she had such an issue with the creep. Trying to bring their daughter back from the dead just was all kinds of wrong, what they'd been doing in that lab, it'd been a freakshow. She knew blowing it to hell was exactly the right thing to do, that fact that even today the ground was tainted just proved her right in her opinion. She knew Phantom had destroyed a second complex during his rampage, but there was no telling what Phantom's actual goal's were in doing so...

Just like there was no telling what exact the device was. Manson's spies didn't even have a clear picture of alleged device anyway. What they did have were rumors, and lots of manifests with various parts of complex equipment. Whatever it was there were two things that were clear it was probably bad news, and the grunts didn't know what it was either. Neither really helped their situation. Today the situation was all that was up for discussion though.

Her dad was already piling through the possibilities with the help of his computer augmented mind running through a checklist. "Its possible its a weapon, or a vehicle. It could even a space lift platform of some kind," He added, "The problem is figuring out just what it could be, there are lots things he could use these parts for, and since he stopped rampaging Phantom's motives have always been unknown."

"Yeah," She agreed faintly, "what the worst case scenario?"

One of the Corp Eggheads spoke up, "the worst case, Phantom's forces are well armed, notably with power armor systems as suggested an airship of some kind with plasmic shielding would be very dangerous just for being able to ferry his marauders across terrain." That was certainly the common expectation at least, it might have been a while, but everyone in the upper echelons could recall what happened when Phantom went on a rampage, and for that matter everyone in Amity Park could as well.

Still an airship seemed a little far fetched. Then again a giant energy cannon wasn't likely either, of course if Phantom had some way of directing a beam, well then it wouldn't be so far fetched. Still trying to piece together the answer with incomplete item manifests, and rumors wasn't likely to get them anywhere. At the same time directly attacking Phantom risked waking the monster from his period of, relative, nonagression against the rest of the world.

One of the other 'experts' stroked his chin, "There is another option," He stated after a minute, "we have been monitoring electromagnetic, and other radiation fluctations," The man remarked, it was one of the few ways to pick up on supernatural threats, or high tech targetting sensors for that matter. "We know that many of the supernatural threats congregate in these saturated areas, but we don't have a great deal of information of what goes on in them," For a minute they were wondering what he was getting at, but then Valerie got it, just as soon as he dropped the name and Jeremy Manson grimaced. "The late Doctor Fenton's work was picked up by our R&D head, a doctor Ashcroft which ultimately dealt with a lot of the early research into these so called 'ley lines'. What little we do know is that they're massive reserves of energy,"

"So it could be a conduit of some kind," She remarked. Apparently the doctor didn't know Daniel Fenton was the Phantom, who would definitely know his own research.

The man nodded, "We don't know a great deal about the leylines the areas are simply too dangerous normally to research, but this kind of equipment is suitable for channelling large amounts of energy if he is using one as generator he could focus it through, but the question would still be what it is for, obviously."

Considering everyone involved in the discussion had seen first hand what such high levels of energy could do when unleashed. It was a known factor that there was a lot of suspicion that high energy weapons might have touched off 'the End'. It was also true that these natural resonance points had flared up during the end, so there was that to consider as well.

Of course as had been mentioned they didn't really have any way of monitoring the points. After the End the notable lay lines, the ones they knew about at least, had all almost universally been overrun by somekind of supernatural or just plain weird occurence. The unnatural storms, and other phenomenae of the end had given way to reports of even stranger monsters than had been the norm during ghost attacks. Conclusive confirmation had come only after the End though in the dog eat dog world that had come to pass.

Jeremy Manson frowned, "If Phantom is sitting on one of these sites is it possible he could be attacked by one of the various unnatural factions?" Unnatural, as opposed to outrigh saying demon or monster, or such, "certainly if thats what the base is sitting on it would be very dangerous to attack, especially given Phantom is a supernatural creature himself."

"Attacking Phantom in general is dangerous," If as hypothesized ley lines did actually make supernatural creatures stronger, well Valerie didn't want to think about that, chances were he'd be fucking invicible on his home turf then.

As it was Amity Park was saturated with energy as it was, which actually explained the near constant attacks by monsters. The city wide shield, and various defensive installations, stopped most of the monsters, but occassionally they had to do more to drive off the extra dimensional invaders.

After the falling out between her and the Mansons over their little freaky abomination project she'd retained control of the manufacturing lines for Amity Park's ghost defense. After the End those had had to be expanded. Today they produced divergent designs than what was produced in the megrasprawl of the Corp's city. Amity Park's defenders were equipped with home built weapons, and the town militia was well suited to defending it.

Attacking Phantom though, oh sure there would be volunteers. There were always volunteers to go rushing off into the danger. The question was whether it was worth it, "Do we have a time table on how long the device is expected to be under construction?" How long did they have until they finished it, Valerie wondered, because there was one expert that they didn't have on hand. If they could get Vlad Masters, who was supposedly travelling between cities in the south west well he'd probably be able to figure something out. Of course the question was whether it would do any good, but it was better than rushing in blind.

-chapter conclusion-


	2. Chapter 2 Introduction to the Present

-scene break-

Danny was kind of worried, more so than normal. It didn't help his parents ecto sensors were going absolutely nuts, and had been for hours. The fact that the sky was green, and there was a massive thunderstorm ongoing didn't help either.

Of course it wasn't like things had been going good today anyway. The storm had been building up all day, and well even if there wasn't an impending ghost doom coming he'd still gotten into a fight with Dash. Well calling it a fight wasn't exactly accurate, it'd been more likely Dash had shove him up against the locker, and then he'd shoved Dash back. Danny hadn't meant to push him that hard, which was the weird thing.

"So do we know anything other than there is some kind of hypersaturation of energy?" Tucker asked looking around, "Cause this really looks bad man." It wasn't like they had any other option but to sit it out though.

Danny shrugged, he didn't. His parents had attempted an explanation, but most of it he hadn't really understood. What he did understand was going ghost was not going to fix this problem he'd tried that and for whatever reason his ghost form was super attempt at flying had sent him rocketing through the air with barely any effort, and he didn't have any kind of fine control over the movement. It seemed like every move got exagerated. He'd tried to turn and well, suffice to say it hadn't gone well. He hadn't tried an ecto beam yet but he was willing to bet it was also going to be way overpowered compared to normal.

Simply put they didn't know enough, and Maddie and Jack Fenton were too busy trying to make sense of a dozen seperate screens, and readouts each. So in short the parents were any help at all in this situation. The only thing that they'd said that made much in the way of sense was that that they might want to advise the town to prepare for the worst, and the very least stay inside.

The fact that the town was already under a national weather advisory would probably keep most people inside, so that was at least one less thing to worry about. It didn't do anything about the storm though. The odd thing was that there weren't any ghosts showing up, which was kind of what was driving Jack and Maddie up the wall trying to figure out. This much energy had to be coming from somewhere, but they couldn't see the ghost anywhere.

What happened hours later was an even bigger indicator that something was wrong. Ghost attacks tended to be characterized by some kind of motivation, even if it was seemingly trivial. Certainly these attacks could get out of hand, but this was something completely different. Sure monsters from the ghost zone had attacked before, and there were ghost animals, but this wasn't that either which was seriously messed up.

The first monster attack had just been assumed to be more ghosts, after all they tended to be so diverse why not just some new ghost who was attacking. Except the police were shooting the things, with actual bullets. They weren't actually doing much, but they were hitting, which was the definite red flag. Bullets tended to pass straight through ectoplasm, or incinerate on contact with the charged material depending on circumstances.

Jack and Maddie had still immediately run off leaving Danny, Jazz, Tucker, and Sam stuck in Fenton Works in the middle of some freaky ectoplasmic storm. The fact his parents had locked the entirety of Fenton Works down, turned on the alarms, and given them all weapons meant he couldn't really sneak off. So he was stuck here watching the videos of the rampaging monsters, each of which were easily twelve feet tall.

"Well it sure looks like Fenton beamers work," Tucker remarked, it was the latest improved weapon modication on the Fenton Ground Assault vehicle, and just was basically an upsized continous beam ecto gun.

In any case from the video feed it was clear Tucker wasn't kidding. Whatever these things were, these big hideous monstrous things were they did not like getting his with weapons the Fentons were carrying at all. Where bullets were at least hitting them, and doing little but being a nuisance ectoplasmic based weapons were leaving wide area burns or blasting clean through. That was the issue though, these things were clearly flesh and blood creatures.

Danny flinched, fenton ecto guns had been able to hit ghosts but they'd never done this kind of damage. On the other side of the coin there were a lot of those things, and they'd been killing, and in some cases eating people. There being a lot of them was the more pressing issue, it was a good thing they'd taken the Ground Assault Vehicle. "What are we going to do?" Sam and Tucker looked back at him away from the increasingly violent happenings that were going on on the screen. The Fenton assault vehicle was already peeling backwards, reversing, and then made a sharp turn to drive away from the still coming monsters. There was a massive tear in the metal body of the vehicle.

On the screen Jack Fenton's face appeared, he was wiping a line of sweat off his forehead, "Uh hi there kids we're bringing this baby in hot, those beasties got the best of us this time but we're still in this fight." As was evident by the continuing firing from the Fenton Ground Assault Vehicle, no doubt Maddie was handling the weapon operations while Jack drove.

Danny sat back in his swivel chair, here they were monsters running around, and he was stuck behind Fenton Work's massive reinforced Ecto Barrier. Even if his ghost powers were acting wonky this just wasn't right.

"Uh guys," Tucker called out nervously, "I really don't like the way these energy readings are looking, and you know keep increasing."

The last time the numbers had been anywhere near this high was during Pariah Dark's attack... wait it didn't have to be a ghost, per se at least, it could have been some kind of artificat like the Fright Knight's sword doing this.

-scene break-

The Initial Rift Event had died down after a few days, Danny Phantom had managed to be able to get around to helping attack the monsters but that was another problem. Imprisoning the Monsters wasn't an option. In the end though the Guys in White had tried to show up, but it had finally taken the National Guard being called in before civil order was restored. Naturally Vlad had to show up to make things worse.

It still hadn't changed the fact that these things definitely weren't ghosts, and that there were sill energy surges going on through out Amity Park. They weren't the only ones either whatever this was well it seemed like some kind widespread occurences. According to the news there were dozens of events across each continent, and indeed typically dozens per country.

His parents were still pick through the data and helping with clean up, which was good since it at least gave them something to do he supposed. Of course as far as being experts went the Fentons were hitting a wall on just what these things could be. What they could do was try and prepare people for a future attack. There in lay the rub people in Amity Park had gotten semi used to ghost attacks even people did get hurt, or something it had just gotten written off like regular crime.

This could have gotten the same treatment... except some idiot newscaster had played the footage of some poor guy getting bitten in half by one of the monsters on live tv. It hadn't been pretty, and it had certainly been gruesome than anything Amity Park had seen on Television that was real even when factoring in ghost attacks.

Danny settled for picking over the information he could get his hands on. His ghost powers were starting to bleed through into his human form apparently, well again seeing as after the portal incident he'd started accidentally using them at inopportune times. It had to be something to do with the increased energy empowering his ghost side, but he didn't have anyway of counter acting it so he needed to find another way to keep it under control.

Part of being stuck here was the fact that he couldn't practice controlling his ghost powers because the whole town was wired with ecto sensors, and everyone was on edge. There was also the fact that Dash was actually making him feel worse. The football jock seemed convinced that the storm had only abated, and thus no more monster attacks, because Danny Phantom had done something, and that was wrong. Dash made sure everyone knew that was what he thought to, loudly.

He hadn't been able to do anything, and just because the storm had dissipated before things had gotten any worse did not make him feel any better about it.

So he was stuck here piecing through the energy readings from during the storm. So far most of what he'd gotten was that there were two sets of energy saturation. One appeared to be the normal, for Amity Park at least, energy saturation, which was definitely up from what it had been. The second was the more problematic one, given that the closest thing Danny had found to match on the energy profile was the Ghost Portal... the permanent one in the basement. The problem was that it didn't go to the ghost zone. It also didn't have a lock on it like the Fenton Portal... which meant more of these things could come through, and that could be a serious problem.

More of these monsters that killed people could come through. This attack had been more lethal than even the worst ghost attack that had happened in Amity Park since he'd become Danny Phantom, and he hadn't been able to go out there an fight it. Still the Ecto guns worked, which meant if he did fight them he could use those, or if he could go ghost his powers should work as well... if they came back that was.

Danny was fairly sure as bad as that was it was the most likely outcome though. The portal wasn't locked, that rift in space and time was still open, and it lead somewhere bad. Sometime, some time soon more of those things were going to come through and he was going to have to be ready to fight them. He turned back to the computer assisted design program, Valerie, and his parents might have been on to something fighting ghosts with technology.

Of course Vlad, and the guys in white were also in town, which was going to be tricky. Still he hadn't seen Vlad turn into Plasmius which meant the other 'halfa' was probably having the same problem he was.

Even if Vlad was out of commission he needed a way to keep fighting, even if he couldn't go ghost without too much damage. So his plan was to appropriate some, more, of his parents' technology. It also meant fabricating a new reinforced jumpsuit. It was true his ghost powers bleeding into his human state were increasing his durabability, but more armor at least as good as Valerie's suit was a pretty good idea. Still he couldn't afford to let his parents catch on, so here he was redesigning some of Fenton Work's existing products. They'd still work pretty much the same but they'd look different and well it was pretty much why people didn't equate Valerie with Fenton works... that and the flying surfboard.

Danny hadn't even considered trying to get the Fenton Work's fabricators to try and make a vehicle even a small one. Right now all the vehicle ones were tied up between his parents repairing, up armoring the Ground Assault Vehicle, and modifying the Speeder. The only plus side was that Valerie was out there patrolling, and there hadn't been any major ghost attacks.

-scene break-

Vlad Masters, aka Plasmius, was very concerned with the situation. He had been hoping for an excuse to expand his influence into Amity Park, but this was a bit too much. This whole thing dangerously complicated his plans, both short term and long term. His greater experience in control was allowing him an easier, relatively speaking time restraining his heightened ghost abilities, but given the sheer number of ecto sensors deployed by the factions present he'd chosen not to rely on them... for the moment at least.

So far he'd been spending much of his time having to deal with Jack's constant yammering, even if said yammering was actually useful. Vlad understood dimensional wormholes... probably better than Jack or Maddie. Both were extremely intelligent, but being an extradimensional entity did in fact have its perks, and in this case insights into things like said other dimensions. Not that he'd ever come forward with such information, a nobel prize in physics was nice and all, but corporate power building left little interest in pure science. Applie science well that was different.

In short Vlad already knew this had little, to nothing to do with the ghost zone. There in was the problem, another set of extra dimension entities invading Amity Park, and elsewhere really was going to convolute his plans. His computer pinged, oh yes he'd quietly infiltrated the Fenton computer network aa while ago... to the point that nuisance Technus had found out... that had been a problematic incident, but these files...

The new designs weren't Jack or Maddie's flare. That didn't leave too many others, so it was either Jasmine, or young Danny. Of course given the slight modifications to the systems, and a certain look well he was relatively certain the new designs were Daniel's work. They certainly showed promise...

His computer pinged again, actually gettin Jack's attention, but whatever he was going to say got cut off as a bunch of suits came marching in. It was a testament twofold to just how bad the situation was that he didn't have more heads up. Again Technus was partially to blame as well given he'd infiltrated the Guys in White's headquarters... and caused no small amount of havoc resulting in a marked increase in electronic security since then.

It did however make sense why the government was bringing this to the Fentons, and that was who they were bringing this to, they even asked, and checked whether it was okay for him to be here. It was Jack of course who totally waved him through the security beuacracy.

Vlad had contemplated time travel at one point. There was conclusive proof that you could suceed with altering the time stream, but he'd ultimately considered it too unwieldly to consider it before other options were exhausted. So having to face the possibility that someone was meddling in time travel, well he was concerned.

The man that the government brought in was barely stable, they were keeping him seperate from his technology as well which was under equally heavy guard. At first it was the technology that interested Vlad, it was just too good of an opportunity, and of course there was the potential danger of more time travelers. Then Jack managed to get through to the man. Sure Vlad had always expected Daniel to go far, but to have name recognition.

After the End various factions had pulled together. Some of the Corporations did well simply because they had the know how to make technology to help people survive. It allowed some cities to even survive largely intact... give or take an average thirty to fifty percent drop in total population after the event. Naturally certain groups wanted to forget their actual beginnings in favor of a more suitably heroic or legendary founding. Manson Industries had never failed to profess that they had always been the forefront of technology since their inception for example while other organizations had other boiserous claims, some claimed mythological founders.

... Doctor Daniel Fenton had had a falling out with Manson, thats what Vlad got to hear. Doctor Daniel Fenton who'd pioneered the creation of mass produced exoskeleton weapon systems that were used by the Argentum Technical Enclave, more commonly shortened to Ars Technica or ArsTech to this day.

In truth Ars Tech was in a way the West Coast's Atlantis, and because of that the Corporate leadership made sure to have appropriate legend to reflect the founding... and to encourage a rivalry, or distaste for enemies. If that had meant exagerating certain things well it didn't hurt the bottom line any. The grunts didn't need to know any better, and well if you didn't know the truth how were you supposed to contradict the popular Myth.

Jack, and Vlad had no reason to disbelieve it, but for completely different reasons. It even made sense to Vlad, after all young Daniel was already tweaking his parent's designs wasn't he. The question was how far would this go. The question now was how to keep Danny out of trouble, after all a young genius was a tempting target.

The man let them in on other things about the future, and it sounded like a grim and terrible place to live, and if the talk they were getting out of this man... well they were running out of time to prepare. Vlad decided that was that he'd just have to start preparing for any further threats to his plans. That meant upping his secret weapon division's production quotas immediately. That just meant he'd have to get away from the men in suits, and uniforms.

Maddie was already trying to activate the systems on the fragments of the battle suit the man had been pulled from down in the garrage... that was another thing Vlad wanted a chance to get at. The battle suit not Maddie...well for another time.

-scene break-

Danny was pretty glad to be out of the house. His parents, and Vlad were all busy playing 'shut in' in one of the labs with something or another, and school had let out hours earlier. He didn't like it having the Guys in White around either... well except for their obsessive cleaning habits that was actually kind of nice. He looked around.

Valerie, all costumed up of course, was patrolling the city on her hoverboard so it wasn't like he could transform and do that. That would definitely spark a fight, which was the last thing he wanted with everyone on edge. It didn't help she'd clearly tweaked her technology, probably to get more power per shot. It seemed like a good idea considered he'd done the exact same thing to the ecto gun he had carefully hidden away. Even with everybody on edge there was no telling when the monsters, or even just regular ghosts might show up.

Danny adjusted the ecto sensor, he cribbed it from one of the labs this morning so he could double check his suspicions. Right now they were looking pretty dead on. They'd gotten lucky with the first monster attack, but the levels were growing again. If Danny could liken it to anything it would be to a volcano, the first portal had just been 'letting off pressure', a little bit of steam as lava built up, it was going to get worse.

"So?" Tucker asked.

He grimaced, "I'll fabricate you guys some ecto rifles tonight," Danny commented, he had a feeling that regular ecto guns might not cut it. Hell he didn't even know if his modified ecto gun would cut it against those things. He didn't even know if he'd be able to transform... if he couldn't control his powers he might end up being a bigger danger than the rampaging monsters.

"Thats sounds bad," Tucker responded, turning to Sam who had just shut her cell phone, "So whats up on your end?" He asked, it was her parents... it was always her parents.

"Family Dinner," She ground out, "With Vlad Masters, I've got to head home." Danny blinked Sam's parents with Vlad Masters... oh sure they were all fabulously wealthy but this seemed a little too convenient, especially given the situation. The question was though what was it Vlad wanted with the Mansons... assuming it wasn't something as simple as attempting to use Sam as leverage, which wasn't something that Danny would put past Vlad to try and do. Of course with Vlad it was rarely that simple.

At the same time they were lucky that the Mansons hadn't made a big fuss over Sam walking back to their house, especially given the heightened danger. Still dropping Sam off, even if it was just dinner, with Vlad coming over rubbed Danny the wrong way. Then again... Vlad in the Fenton's guest bedroom for his visit was pretty bad too so maybe he shouldn't have been talking. Of course Jack wouldn't even entertain the notion of 'his buddy' staying in some hotel much less in this scenario. So he'd insisted Vlad stay safely behind the Fenton Work's Ghost Shield.

Still it was the principle of the thing Vlad was danerous, but they couldn't spy on Sam's dinner with her family, and he really did need to grab as much lab time as he could... and study for school. If only Lancer would get the hint there was an imminent threat of overwhelming doom and easy up on the schoolwork, but that didn't look to be happening anytime soon. So Danny had another night of picking through the Great Gatsby for English.

It meant he was going to be up just as long as if he were out patrolling instead of Valerie, except instead of flying around the city he'd be stuck at home. At least there wouldn't be any chance of his parents catching him sneaking out, or back in. There was however the chance of them catching him experimenting with the machinery, and that could end up opening a whole other can of worms that he really didn't want to deal with.

So around five Tucker went home leaving Danny at his house. The only one who wasn't accounted for was Jazz, but then there was no telling where she was, but given the ecto sensors, or more specifically their lack of screeching, and how busy the house was it was more likely she'd just gone to get away from the exceptionally busy Fenton works.

On the plus side the multistory Fenton Works, including the underground levels, and the detachable ops center, had enough space that he could avoid the Guys in White, of whom most were busy doing one thing or another, and the reduced number of national guardsmen present. The last couple days had seen most of the Guard moved away from Fenton Works, despite Jack's open invitation that they were plenty welcome, and into a still under construction emergency command post just outside of town. With Vlad off at the Mansons, and Jazz gone he could hole up and not be concerned about being bothered at least for a couple hours, especially since his parents seemed like they were going to forget about dinner tonight. Of course if they did call... well he'd just have to keep an ear out.

-scene break-

In the future things were still grim looking, but no one really expected that to change. The tapping into the energy was supposed to open the way back, with the appropriate machines of course. Of course ley lines were difficult to manipulate, in a controlled manner at least, at the best of times, and it certainly didn't help that there were other people working on other North American Ley Lines in addition to him. Particularly when they were doing vastly different things to them.

The monsters didn't tend to build anything on the ley lines, which meant they weren't really a problem in this instance, which was really kind of a first. The problem in this instance were humans in particular those who could tap into the ley lines via supernatural methods. Even in the future their remained, or perhaps they thrived because of the end, back to nature, and violent eco groups.

The world had been a dangerous place before technology had gotten scarce, and society had collapsed. Naturally adding supernatural powers and fanaticism to the mix had been a bad combo, it had almost been as bad as having corporations control vast enclaves... almost. Even the friendly corps still managed to be collosal dicks.

The fact that Manson Industries was sticking its nose were it didn't belong just happened to be a testament to this fact. The Phantom looked up, it was a pity, but on the plus side they were still on schedule and the testing was showing promising results. On that note Van Karman was confident that they'd remain on track. The energy surges were more of a conern, but right now the corporate powerhouse to the east had more of his focus.

"We're sure, Manson is at least aware of construction," Where in the past Vlad was assuming that Manson was in fact Sam, the real threat was her parents... after all in this timeline she was dead, and that event had given her parents so much enending motivation. "Our spies within Amity Park agree that he is at least reaching out to Valerie Gray, and she in turn is looking to contact Vlad Masters for his expertise."

That could definitely be a problem, Vlad might have remained in his funk for his while, but he'd managed to eventually work through it. The man had never attempted a direct confrontation before though, but given the right prompting he might attempt to. Vlad's mental blue screen had put out of commission for a while, but the man had had years to rebuild himself, and get reaquainted with technology. The chance of Vlad's expertise being used against him was a very real danger.

The Phantom looked around, there were men, and women scurrying all around the complex. The bulk of the facility of course was underground. Once upon a time this had been a missile silo built before he'd been born. It had laid fallow for decades even before the End, but now it had found a new life. Its first line of defense remained the energy barriers which would deter any unwelcome

attacks, and if those failed well there were physical walls for fighting men to use as cover. Today though there wasn't a threat, and the base was calm, if busy. It was the way he liked it, a dozens real, and lethal wars had come and gone in the last decade, and there would be more to come, even if they did succeed, but it would be worth it.

He had watched, personally, St Louis burn to the ground, and seen an empire rise in Los Angeles, and all the other destruction the end had brought. In the earlier years he thrived on the chaos running around with barely a care, wreaking all the chaos he had wanted. Now though things were different, the rampaging had just further made the world a more barren place, and it hadn't needed any help in that regard. Still what was done, was done all that was left was attempting damage control. Even if they could go back in time, all they could do was hope mankind would be a little better prepared for the end, but it'd still be an improvement.

Texas was just too far away to commit forces to, it'd involve crossing through too much wasteland, and through too many little fiefdoms to be worth the risk. He could have sent the Fright Knight of course, but the truth was he'd better spent intercepting any would be attackers.

"We've checked the systems again, and we're relatively sure of the results,"

A grimace crossed his face, "Yellowstone then?" The supervolcano... if it could still be called that now was a massive font of supernatural energy, it was also surrounded by a massive supernatural forest that covered a sizable portion of what had been the national park. "I see," He'd need to do something about that. He didn't know what the West Cost's mega corporation was doing poking around, but it probably wasn't anything good. The problem with Argentum was that they were vastly more... inclined to publically use supernatural powers than their East Coast competition, which painted a much larger target for a number of aggressive factions. Mega Corp + Magic was a bad combination, but it was just a fact of life.

Still with Amity Park potentially getting nosy he could hardly afford to send anything to investigate the site, between Argentum and the Children of the Forrest it would be a shooting war already. Of course there was another option... his eyes shifted, hair went blacked. There was still the taint of supernatural power his eyes would glow in the dark, and there was still something not quite right about his pupils, and his skin was just too pale. It was a consequence, maybe if things had played out differently Vlad would have developed the same ... symptoms but then maybe not.

"You can't seriously be thinking of going, cross country teleportation would leave an energy trail that any half way decent ecto sensor would pick up," Light up like a christmas tree was more accurate really, "not to mention every monster in between here and there," Would probably be able to sense the expenditure of energy.

-scene break—

Helltanz's notes: So this has at last gotten the expansion it desrved, certainly both chapters could be longer but I feel both are definite improvements over what they were. I cannot say when Chapter 3 will go up as I really have no idea.


End file.
